Friday, 4 April 2025

Fact Checker: Tariff-palooza: Trump’s falsehood-filled war on imports

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The truth behind the rhetoric.

By Glenn Kessler

Some readers were confused last week about our note concerning the Trump claims database. They mistakenly thought we were no longer going to fact check President Trump at all. Nothing could be further than the truth! For personal reasons – not orders from our bosses – we simply will not keep a running list of the president's many false or misleading claims.

In fact, this week we produced four fact checks, many related to Trump's sweeping global tariff regime.

One article looked at the false claims he made during his announcement, including:

"Since the very beginning of NAFTA, our country lost 90,000 factories." (This is a dubious number, with many "factories" having four or fewer employees.)
"If you look at China, I took in hundreds of billions of dollars in my term." (The real figure is $75 billion – and $28 billion went to bail out farmers who lost business because of Chinese retailiation.)

To read the full fact check, click the link below.

Read the full fact check

Also: Trump White House cited economists for its tariff formula. They pan it.

Click this link to read the full fact check.

Read the full fact check

Rollins misfires with claim Trump left Biden an agriculture trade surplus.

Click this link to read the full fact check.

Read the full fact check

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Trump's false claim he's already scored more business deals than Biden

Trump often trumpets his achievements, real or otherwise, but he made a claim on social media that was so astonishing that we had to check it out: "In two months, there has been more Private Investment spoken for, and/or committed to, than in four years of the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration — A fact that the Fake News hates talking about!"

Is it possible that companies have committed more money in the first two months of the Trump administration than during the entire Biden administration? After all, Joe Biden prided himself on focusing relentlessly on bringing manufacturing back to the United States.

This was not just another middle-of-the-day musing by the president. There are some real numbers attached to this claim — but it's a matter of comparing apples and oranges. Or, to use another cliché, the president is counting his chickens before they have hatched.

To read the full report and learn the Pinocchio rating, please click this link.

Read the full fact check

We're always looking for fact-check suggestions.

You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP and @AdriUsero) or Facebook. We're also on TikTok. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here.

About the cats: It's a Friday and sometimes our fact checks deal with heavy or depressing subjects. So we hope to bring a smile to your face.

Scroll down to read more tariff-related fact checks

Trump and Vance's false and misleading rhetoric on tariffs

Unpacking the White House spin on the impact of 'globalist' policies

Trump's fantastical claim of a $200 billion 'subsidy' to Canada

No, Janet Yellen doesn't back Trump's tariff claim

Trump's gusher of misleading economic statistics at Davos

Book Club

Our weekly selection of book reviews and recommendations from Book World editor Ron Charles.

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Thursday, 3 April 2025

U.S. News Alert: One day into a widespread and marathon storm, tornadoes and floods have killed at least seven people across three states

U.S. News Alert

April 3, 8:09 p.m. EDT

One day into a widespread and marathon storm, tornadoes and floods have killed at least seven people across three states

The days-long storm is expected to fuel more tornadoes Friday and heavy rains through the weekend. In Tennessee, where much of the damage has emerged, five have died, including two who were killed when a house was overturned. One person was killed in Indiana when they drove over a downed power line.